CS 201- Jon Postel Distinguished Lecture: The Role of CDNs in Restoring Trust on the Internet, TOM LEIGHTON, Akamai

Jan 17, 2019

Speaker: Tom Leighton
Affiliation: Akamai

ABSTRACT : The Internet is the invention of our generation and compares well with the advent of television, radio, and even the printing press when measured in terms of its impact on the way we live. And this is just the beginning. We probably can’t even imagine what amazing applications are yet to be invented as billions of people, hundreds of billions of devices, and countless exabytes of data become intelligently connected as part of the Internet of Things. But the future of the Internet, along with all the good that it has enabled, is now threatened by multiple powerful entities that would exploit it to do harm. In this talk, we will briefly review the development of CDN technology and the role it can play in re-establishing trust in the connected world that we all rely on.

BIO: Dr. Tom Leighton co-founded Akamai Technologies in 1998 and served as Akamai’s Chief Scientist until he became CEO in 2013. Under Dr. Leighton’s leadership, Akamai has evolved from its origins as a Content Delivery Network (CDN) into one of the most essential and trusted cloud delivery and cybersecurity platforms, upon which many of the world’s best brands and enterprises build and secure their digital experiences. During his initial five years as CEO, Akamai’s revenue nearly doubled, growing from less than $1.4 billion in 2012 to over $2.5 billion in 2017, and the annual revenue run rate from Akamai’s security business grew nearly 20-fold, to more than $500 million by the end of 2017. Dr. Leighton graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1978 with a B.S.E. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from MIT in 1981.